March 28, 2013

(Performed in a
re-purposed, long, white wedding gown with fetish details by Jack
Davis, periodically drinking apple cider vinegar with a straw,
gagging and drooling excessively, while standing on the fire escape
of Dance Mission Theater in a piss and junk alley off 24th
St. in San Francisco.)

Dear
all you poor suckers, you grief stricken and fear frozen, overworked
and underpaid, flag waving Americans who are so lost in your own pain
that …

Dear
all of you. Fuck you.

Refrain:
I told you so, I told you so, I fucking told you so

I
told you that war always kills children

I
told you that there’d be no way to win this war

without
bankrupting the US,

without
destroying the hopes of our youth…

leading
to more hungry, illiterate, and orphaned children

Refrain:
I told you so…

I
don’t want to talk about it

It
hurts

It
hurts that the killing continues

as
I speak, as I drink, and even as I sleep

It
hurts while the starvation and bad water continue

While
the profits of Carlysle, Bechtel, Chevron, and Haliburton continue

It
hurts while the profits of the Saudi and Kuwaiti royal families,

the
Bush and Bin Laden royal families, the Fox and CNN royal families
continue

While
the repression of female power, education, community and health
continues

Don’t
make me give all the details

You
fucking know it

I
told you so

Everyone
told you so

Even
your own goddamned experts must have told you that most Iraqi
citizens would never forgive the first Gulf War

All
the cruel killing, war crimes and destruction of water treatment
plants, pharmaceutical factories, and other essential services.

You
are responsible for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children

and
even more adults in the 10 years preceding 9.11 and yet you dare to
brag, “We bring freedom to tortured souls!”

Meanwhile
after 3 years of illegal imprisonment and torture there have been no
convictions of Guantanamo prisoners! No terrorists found.

And
the International Red Cross says that 70% of Iraqi prisoners in US
custody were arrested by mistake, have no intelligence value, and
will never be charged with anything, and yet you force them to suck
each other off on camera.

You
couldn’t find a terrorist if you were looking in the mirror.

Instead
of asking, “why do they hate us?”,

we
should be asking,

“What
will it take to disrupt America’s fake-ass innocence and total
denial of the crimes of the corporate state?

Crimes
which we support every time we drive a car, lace up our sneakers, and
eat an ear of corn.”

Refrain:
I told you so…

Refrain:
I told you so…

I
hate that revenge is culturally acceptable in Washington, Baghdad,
Jerusalem, Hollywood, Ramallah, Jakarta, London, Beijing, Fruitvale
and the Mission.

I
hate the cynical tactic of terrorizing people into accepting the
punishment of others, of accepting that entire nations are evil
enemies to be violently contained.

Every
war and occupation is based on the same fucked up logic that Hitler
triumphed and that’s why I name you all fascists.

Refrain:
I told you so…

With
15 million people in the streets on the same day I told you so

With
the majority of the UN I told you so

But
you don’t seem to care about the UN.

What
the fuck is the matter with you?

The
entire hope of the UN is the promise of NEVER AGAIN;

of
promising to the hearts ripped open with grief and betrayal that a
liberation of body, soul and planet is possible blah blah blah

But
you hate hope

What
the fuck is the matter with you?

Over
3,000 humans died in the attacks of September 11, 2001

And
since then you’ve killed more than 20 times that including 1400 US
Soldiers, at least 3000 Afghani civilians and a minimum of 20,000
Iraqi civilians...*

How
many need to die? How many need to lose a leg or an eye?

Your
wounds cannot be healed by the blood of dead children.

Stop
killing their babies!

Stop
killing their babies!

Why
are you so fucking cruel?

You
don’t fucking care about safety, about home, land, security?

You’ll
kill anyone anywhere just to make everyone more depressed, more
afraid, more anxious, more likely to kill.

The
more you kill, humiliate, and starve,

the
more danger and terror you bring to your own home.

You’re
the number one inspiration for fundamentalist religious violence.

You
have trained, funded, and armed terrorists.

You
practically invented Al Queda.

You
befriended and funded Saddam for years.

You
collaborate with anti-democratic torturous regimes all over the world
including Pakistan, Indonesia, China and Saudi Arabia.

You
lied, you lied, you lied, and you lied again.

You’re
a bunch of mass murder war criminals who ought to rotting in a prison
made just for wealthy cynics.

Refrain:
I told you so…

But
you don’t listen

You
don’t listen cuz I’m a drunk homo bride with no land to call my
own

Yah
you don’t listen cuz I’m a drunk homo bride with no land to call
my own and I confuse all the issues.

But
I give up. You win.

Now
fuck off and leave me alone.

(every
time it was performed there was a PS or two... mostly to address an
immediate news event or terrible feeling I was carrying around...
Here are the PS's that I could find:)

PS.
2008

Fuck
you San Francisco for supporting Gavin Newsom. It was a sad day for
democracy when he ran unopposed. Evictions continue. The rents are
way too high. The homeless and mentally ill have received neither
Care nor Cash. Fuck Don Fisher. Fuck Warren Hellman. Fuck Getty,
Feinstein, Newsom, and the all the rich trash who want this city for
themselves.

And
a special fuck you to Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton, one of whom
will be the next president of the United States of Global Terror and
Endless War. Neither one of you will have the integrity or courage to
get out of Iraq. You will maintain the chaos, you will maintain the
sink hole of tax dollars which will compromise every progressive
social vision that you’ve ever had, you will continue to protect
the oil companies and the hugest of profiteering corporations, public
schools and hospitals in the US will continue to suffer while
illiterate children continue to starve in this great country, and you
will continue to support Israel’s ongoing imperialist strategies of
Palestinian erasure. I’m already sick of your empty promises, fake
smiles, and online donations. Fuck you.

PS.
2005

To
all those gain grotesquely from Halliburton’s pathological
profiteering in Iraq, spending billions on US military bases and zero
on hospitals, schools and homes, fuck you. And that includes Dick
Cheney & Condi Rice, Halliburton’s filthy rich thieving friends
in the White House, and to Alberto Gonzalez who supplied the legal
justification to torture anyone who gets in the way of those profits,
fuck all of you.

PPS.
And a special fuck you to each and every employee of the CIA for
intentionally fucking up democratic hopes and movements from
Guatemala to Guantanamo, from Haiti to Indonesia, from Iran to El
Salvador. Instead of preventing 9/11 and catching your buddy Osama,
instead of supporting peaceful uprisings to oppressive regimes,
instead of feeding all the people and teaching the world to read,
you’re just a bunch of overpaid, dumb ass terrorists. Whatever.
Fuck you too. I’m out.

PS.
2004

I
don’t care how many marriage licenses Gavin Newsom signs.

As
long as he refuses to tax the corporations who own downtown,

and
refuses to stop bullying our poorest citizens, he’s an enemy of the
people.

And
a special fuck you to all who praise Ronald Reagan (after his death
in 2004). His political career was a disaster for humanity, an insult
to democracy, and a scourge upon the hardest working peoples of the
world. He stood on the wrong side of every liberation struggle...
AIDS, Central America, women...

circo zero / performance

Rants, Raves, Reflections, & Revisions

Keith Hennessy blogs occasionally about performance, contemporary dance, and political action, in San Francisco, USA, Europe and beyond. Performance making, teaching and viewing as research and revival. Performance writing as a practice of critical witness, reflection, and discussion.